


Boxed In

by MissILikeTooManyFandoms



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cat Grant Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, F/F, Gen, pre-supercat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 08:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6650056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissILikeTooManyFandoms/pseuds/MissILikeTooManyFandoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara is adjusting to her new role at CatCo but its becoming increasingly difficult to balance finding a replacement assistant, editing, and saving the city.  Not to mention, her windowless office is finally taking its toll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boxed In

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my first foray into Supergirl fanfic. Let me know what you think!

Though she had been told to take all the time she needed, Kara knew her boss really was expecting an answer by the end of the week as to what she intended to do with her promotion. Alex had been overjoyed by the news, glad that her sister was finally being acknowledged for all of her hard work in all aspects of her life, but honestly, Kara had never given much thought to being promoted. She had not exactly imagined she would be Cat Grant’s assistant forever, but she certainly had not thought she would be given such an open ended opportunity. Kara had not thought much about her future at CatCo when she became Supergirl, at least nothing past just ensuring she would have a future at the company. Finding her replacement was also rapidly turning into its own full-time position. Finding qualified candidates was not difficult, there were whole cities full of Siobhans looking for their way into one of the largest media empires on the face of the planet. Unfortunately, few of these candidates were prepared for Cat Grant herself. There was a reason Kara was the first assistant to last more than a month and she was becoming increasingly more confident that her alien biology was it. 

“KIERA!” She might have an office and close to a slightly swankier title than assistant, but somethings had not changed. She allowed herself a brief facedesk, wincing as she rose when she noticed a fairly obvious dent in the shape of her forehead, before sprinting out of her office, nearly bowling her boss over as she rounded the corner by the elevator bank. Before she could fully appreciate the fact that a normal person probably would have been unable to hear the shout to come running and formulate a somewhat plausible excuse for the oddity, her boss unknowingly saved her the hassle. “Oh, good, you’re already up. Assistant Number 3 was a disaster and-” A dark, petite woman ran by sobbing, clutching a box that hardly looked unpacked. She nearly collided with the elevator doors but thankfully they opened just as her nose was about to brush the metal. “Well. That saves me the explanation. Do I have a 12:30?” 

Kara flipped open her tablet with nearly inhuman speed, her eyes scanning the screen. It was all for show, really, she had memorized the interview schedule for the next three days but that hardly seemed normal. Though Assistant Number 3 had in fact been hired, Miss Grant had insisted on rolling interviews throughout the week. Worst case, they would have to be canceled but it was becoming clear that Kara would need to find more candidates. 

“Yes, Miss Grant. Meera-” 

“Excellent. Now, when Assistant Number 4 gets here, tell her to fetch me the new layouts from James and to remind the IT hobbit that he is not to be intimidated by the head of security before his meeting at 4.” Cat turned to walk away.

“But Miss Grant, the interview-”

“I hardly have time for interviews, Kara. You received one because I did not have a great assistant vetting the fresh meat. Your replacement must learn to think on their feet. Didn’t you come up with a cheatsheet anyway? I overheard you and Wilt discussing it.” Kara flushed, much to Cat’s amusement. 

“I did. I’ll send Meera off on her tasks as soon as she arrives.” She did not feel the need to add that the so called “cheatsheet” was in fact a thick binder of essential information Kara had learned over the past two years on how to best assist the Queen of all Media. With a nod, Cat moved to head back to her office, but she paused while Kara was still within earshot.

“Oh and don’t forget I want those edits on my desk by the end of the day.” 

“Yes, Miss Grant.” With a deep breath, Kara turned on her heel and slipped back into her office. She made it through half of the edits Cat had requested before Meera arrived but Meera was hardly out the door with her tasks when Kara’s phone rang. 

“A barge is about to collide with a leisure craft just off-” Kara was in the sky before Lucy could finish. There may not have been any window to leap out of, but the staircase was closer than before. The rescue was fairly easy, the small yacht up and out of the path of the barge and back on to the waves before Lucy finished explaining the emergency. There had been a news crew out and about however, somehow managing to capture the brief rescue. By the time she returned to CatCo, the office was abuzz with the fortunate, nearly accidental coverage. Yet, when Kara entered the bullpen to check up on Meera, she found her desk clear and several of her fellow employees looking more stricken than usual. 

“Nice save there.” 

“Thanks, Winn. Can you tell me what’s going on? You’d think Miss Grant would be overjoyed at the exclusive coverage. And where’s Meera?” She rested a bit against his desk, eyes lowered. With her glasses sliding a bit down her nose, Kara took advantage of the casual look to check the building with her X-Ray vision. “Wait. She’s not even in the building.”

“Yeah. You just missed her. She...uh...said something kind of nasty about Supergirl while we watched the rescue. Miss Grant fired her on the spot.” 

“Seriously? Ugh. She didn’t even last an hour. What did she say?” Kara missed the way Winn blanched, gaze pointed over her shoulder.

“Nothing that bears repeating, Kiera. Now, when will Assistant Number 5 get here?” Kara whirled around, flipping through her tablet.

“3 o’clock, Miss Grant. Last one of the day.” 

“Maybe this one will last. Send them straight to me when they get here.” She strode off while Kara groaned. 

“It must really take an alien to be her assistant. Did she say Assistant Number 5?” Winn grinned but his eyes shone with concern. 

“No one has even lasted a full 24 hours yet. I’m going to run out of candidates by Friday. And I have a mountain of edits to work through by the end of the day.”

“Have you decided what you want to do yet?” Winn grimaced in sympathy as Kara’s phone rang. She groaned again before dashing off, calling out behind her with her phone pressed to her ear.

“Nope!” 

Unfortunately, the Fort Rozz escapee who could spit magma was no where near as easy to capture as it was to rescue the yacht from earlier. Despite copious amounts of ice breath, she was still a bit singed when she arrived back at CatCo. She had missed the new assistant but he seemed to be handling everything well. She had made it back with an hour to close but she managed to finish her edits for the various departments (Cat’s test for Kara’s best fit and an attempt at helping her find her niche) with a few moments to spare, dropping off the pile and catching her boss actually refer to her new assistant by the proper name. She nearly cried in relief. 

When Kara arrived the next day, her inbox pinged with a message from Assistant Number 5. Apparently he had cracked under pressure and quit. She barely had time to grab Cat’s coffee and confirm her interviews for the day before Cat herself arrived. They went through three assistants before the lunch hour and another two while Kara was out pulling civilians from a raging apartment fire. Though her new office provided much needed privacy and a fridge for very necessary snacks, Kara was beginning to miss the sun. Sure her brief adventures outside for emergencies gave her little boosts, but she was much too accustomed to sitting in direct sunlight nearly all day. She hoped eating a little bit more throughout the day would help correct the energy deficit. 

On Day 4 of what Winn had begun to call “The Great Hunt” and after Assistant Number 11’s mental breakdown in the bullpen, Kara was called away for the rest of the day. Thankfully, her edits had been completed at superspeed before lunch, not that she was any closer to choosing what or where she wanted to work. Another Fort Rozz escapee had been located and Kara was forced to follow the Kryptonian war criminal deep into the sewers beneath National City. 

“Remind me again why you get to stay up there all nice and clean while I’m forced to experience the smells of the city in HD?” Kara’s voice echoed off of the slick, stone walls. She had nearly thrown up when she first dropped into the sewers, her senses overwhelmed by the rot and other such wondrous flavors of the city’s sanitation system. 

“Because your job is to flush her out, Supergirl.” Alex chuckled over the comms while Kara grumbled in Kryptonian. Her irritation only increased when the mad scientist burst through the tunnel to her right, slamming her into the grime coated wall. She landed a brutal punch to her jaw but the momentum had knocked her quite a distance down the tunnel, allowing her to sprint ahead and around a bend. Kara followed at breakneck speed, whipping around turns as she ventured deeper into the underground network. Her com sputtered out not long after but she managed to catch up to the criminal and launch her through the nearest manhole. They had long passed the designated manhole where Alex and the other DEO agents waited with kryptonite handcuffs, but Kara quickly shouted their location as her com crackled back to life as she reached the surface. 

They had reemerged in the center of the city, dodging cars and buses as they fought. Her opponent held little concern for those around them and using Kara’s nature against her, continued to launch vehicles at her and into buildings, escaping while Kara rushed to rescue the people around her. Though delayed, Kara continued pursuit to the bridge. After catching a few more cars and returning them to safety, Kara and the prisoner stared each other down in the center of the bridge. As per usual, the convict compared Kara to her mother and spoke of the injustice that had been done upon them. 

“You’re a war criminal. You’re hardly the victim here.” Though her plan had been to keep the woman talking until the DEO arrived, Kara was forced into yet another battle of heat vision, her words enraging the escapee. Before she could blind yet another Kryptonian and just as she heard Alex’s unit land, the Fort Rozz prisoner swung her gaze along the ground and up the supports of the bridge. Kara’s side buckled as the steel supports began to creak and slide away from each other. The suspension cables snapped, one wrapping around the prisoner but Kara hardly noticed as she flew into action, shoulder the bridge as she attempted to realign the supports. She could hear kryptonite bullets finding their mark as a battle raged above her but with the prisoner distracted, Kara managed to weld the bridge back together with her heat vision. The suspension cables remained dangling, but the bridge would stand while they evacuated it. 

Once back at the compound and with the Kryptonian war criminal back in a cell, Alex demanded Kara spend the next two days in the sun bed, but with a wave of her hand and an earnest look, she managed to return to her apartment. Alex had been afraid she had burned out her powers, but when Kara woke up the next morning, she reported no ill effects. 

Her mistake, however, was warming Miss Grant’s coffee. She wobbled on her feet but managed to hand off the drink and make it back to her office without making a scene. She barely left the office, sending assistants all over the building and working on an ever growing pile of edits and layouts. She was about ready to just pick a department so she would at least have a less intense workload. By ten, Kara was convinced she had come down with a cold, and by noon she was convinced it was the flu. At one o’clock, she stood to leave her office and check on the latest assistant. She collapsed before she made it around her desk. 

  
  


“Kiera!” Cat looked up from her desk, glaring, about to shout again when her eyes fell upon her assistant’s desk. She had forgotten for the fifth time that week that Kara was no longer within yelling distance. Though she did not really believe that little fact, she stood and stormed out of her office. She had fired Assistant Number 13 and was beginning to consider rescinding Kara’s promotion. Except not really. She was going to suggest the alternative in an attempt to encourage Kara to stop hiring worthless idiots. It was also four and she had not seen Kara since she had handed off her latte. Not that she missed her or anything. That would be ridiculous. 

“Kiera!” She knocked loudly on the door, tapping her foot impatiently. When it was not opened promptly, she knocked again, prepared to shout a little louder but when she heard no indication of movement, her brow furrowed. She opened the door, glaring at Kara’s empty desk before sliding down and catching sight of the young woman on the ground. “Kara!” She rushed to kneel by her, carefully shaking her shoulder before checking her pulse. She allowed herself a brief sigh of relief when she found that Kara’s heart was still beating. She turned to leave the room, to find Wick and James Olsen but before she rose to her feet, she remembered that Whitt was in yet another meeting with the head of security, attempting to strengthen their electronic system, and James was in Metropolis, attempting to get an exclusive on Superman post-Myriad. Panic was beginning to set in but then Kara’s eyes fluttered open, her gaze glassy. 

“Kara?” Cat rested her hand against the younger woman’s cheek, tilting her face up. Kara stared, unseeing for several moments, before muttering words in a language Cat did not understand. She did, however, recognize that they were words from no language on Earth. They were beautiful and resonated in the air in a way Cat had never heard. If her suspicions had not been confirmed during the body double disaster, they certainly would have been now. A hospital, obviously, was out of the question and as a last ditch effort, Cat fished Kara’s phone from her pocket. There were three missed calls from an “Alex” and with no hesitation, Cat called the number back. 

“Kara! Where are you? We need a little help here. Apparently that lava spitter had a brother-”

“This is Cat Grant and though I’d love to hear the details of National City’s latest alien menace, Kara has collapsed at work and is muttering about a Rao something or other.” Cat rolled her eyes as Alex gave her the unsurprising older sister and terrifying top secret government organization talk.

“Yes, yes I am sworn to secrecy. You honestly can’t think I didn’t already know. That doppleganger trick you all pulled was hardly convincing. Now with the threats aside can you come help her?” Her voice cracked a bit. It hardly felt like any time at all had passed between the time she had hung up and when Alex burst through the door. She had expected her building to be swarmed by black ops, not a somewhat unimpressive woman in plaid. The Danvers sisters certainly had a horrible sense of fashion in common. “Where are the rest of your goons?”

“I would have figured you would be all about discretion, Miss Grant.” Alex carefully picked Kara up from the ground, propping her under a shoulder and gesturing the CEO over. 

“I think I’d rather deal with some questions than a dead superhero.” She grunted as she took Kara’s other shoulder. “I’m going to have to start sending Kara for her own salads.”

“She has to eat upwards of ten thousand calories a day.” Alex managed a chuckle while they maneuvered the unconscious woman into the stairwell. 

“Is that why she’s like this? Has she not been eating enough? I thought she got her powers from the Sun?” They both grunted as they slowly but surely made their way up the stairs. Luckily there were only two flights to the roof. 

“I’m not permitted to share this information with you, Miss Grant.”

“Oh, but you can tell me her caloric intake?”

“Well, if you know she gets her power from the Sun, then why did you send her to probably the only windowless office in your entire building?” Alex nearly face planted as she was forced to take more of Kara’s weight. Cat had stopped, her eyes wide. 

“I...I had no idea. I never considered…” Alex almost felt bad for the woman.

“C’mon. You can apologize later. We need to get her out of here.” The rest of the journey to the roof and the ensuing helicopter flight were shockingly, blissfully silent. 

Kara woke up twelve hours later. She was exhausted but able to hold a conversation and inhale a few pounds of food. After a stern talking to from Alex, Kara was left alone with her boss. 

“Kara, I am so sorry.” Her hand rested on the edge of the sun bed, nearly brushing Kara’s arm. 

“For what? I burned out my powers fighting an alien. That’s hardly your fault.” Kara left out the bit about her coffee. That was a conversation for another time.

“I gave you that office knowing full well you were Supergirl.” Cat looked almost sheepish as Kara’s eyes narrowed. Despite orders against it, Kara sat up, staring hard at Cat.

“What?”

“You didn’t fool me with that little trick you pulled. In fact it only made me more certain that you were Supergirl. And...I know your power comes from the Sun.” Kara’s eyes flashed and Cat was exceedingly thankful, for the first time since the ordeal began, that her powers were out for a bit. “But I didn’t mean for this to happen. It never occurred to me that not being in the sun would weaken you like this, that it would prevent you from recovering. I actually thought the windowless, private office would be beneficial. Help you keep your secret. I’m sorry.” Cat looked down, fingers tight on the table. 

“Well, I haven’t decided what it is exactly that I want to do but you did say I could ask for anything I want, right?” A small smile played at Kara’s lips. Cat looked up, her smile mirroring Kara’s. 

“Within reason.”

“Would lunch on the balcony be within reason? Plus permission to work from the balcony when necessary?” 

“If you can hire me an assistant who is a quarter as good as you are, the balcony can  _ be _ your damn office.” 


End file.
